The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-11-07
CONCORD AND DISC0RD.
TALMAGE ON THE LAYING OF THE
WORLDS CORNERSTONE.


BROOKLYN, Nov. 6.--The main feature in
the music of the Brooklyn Tabernacle is
the congregational singing. To-day, after
the opening song, in which all the thousands
heartily participated, Prof. Browne gave
on the organ Scherzo, opus 81, by Mendels
sohn. The Rev T. Dewitt Talmage, D. d.
expounded chapter in the first book of
Samuel, where Saul, possessed of an evil
spirit, threw n iavelin at David, who was
playing on the harp before him, thus show
ing that the evil spirit does not like sacred
music The subject of the sermon was
Concord and Discord," and the text was
from job xxxviii, 6, {: "Who laid the cor
ner-stone thereof; when the morning stars
sang together.n DIR. Tulmage said:
We have all seen the ceremony at the
LAYING of the cornerstone of church, asylum
or Masonic temple. Into the hollow of the
stone were placed scrolls of history and
important documents, to he suggestive if,
one or two hundred years after. the build
ing should he destroyed by fire or torn
down. We remember the silver trowe or
iron hammer that smote the square piece of
granite into sanctity. We remember some
| venerable man who presided, welding the
| trowel or hammer We remember also the
music as the choir stood on the scattered
| stones and timber of the building about to
| be constructed. The leaves of the note
| books fiuttered in the wind, and were turned
over with great rustling, and we remem-
ber how the bass, baritone, tenor, contralto
and soprano voices commingled. They had
| for many dayS been rehearSing the special
programme, that it might be worthy of the
| cornerstone laying.
In my text the poet of UZ calls us to a
grander ceremony--the laying of the foun-
| dation of this great temple of a world.
| The cornerstone was a block of light and
| the trowel was of celestial crystal All
about and on the embankments of cloud
stood the angelic choristers unrolling their
| librettos of overture. and other worlds
| clapped shining cymbals while the ceremony
went on, and God the architect, by stroke
of light after stroke of light, dedicated this
great cathedral of world, with mountains
| for pillars, and sky for frescoed ceiling, and
| Towering fields for floor, and sunrise and
midnight aurora for upholstery. ''Who
| laid the cornerstone thereof; when the
morning stars sang togetherp
The fact is that the whole universe was a
complete cadence, an unbroken dithyramb,
a musical portfolio. The great sheet of i'm
mensity had been spread out, and written on
it were the stars, the smaller of them
ninims, the larger of them sustained notes.
| The meteors marked the staccato passages,
! the whole heavens a gamut, with all sounds,
| intonations and modulations, the space be-
tween the worlds musical interval, trem-
bling of stellar light quaver, the thunder
a base clef, the wind among trees treble
clef. That is the way God made all things,
a perfect harmony.
But one day harp. string snapped In the
great orchestra. One day voice sounded
| out of tune. One day a discord harsh and
terrific, grated upon the glorious antiphone
| 1t was sin thaJ made tho dissonance, and
that harsh discord has been sounding
through the centuries. All the work of
Christians. and philanthrophists, and re-
| formers of all ages is to stop that discord
and get all things back into the perfect hal-
mony which was heard at the laying OF the
cornerstone, when the morning stars sang
| together. Before | get through if | am
dlvinely helped, will make it plain that
sin is discord and Righteousness is harmony
That things in general are out of tune is
as plain as to a musicians ear is the un-
| happy clash of clarionet and bassoon to an
orchestral rendering.
The worlds health out of tune: Weak
lung and the atmosphere in collision, dis
ordered eye and monday light in quarrel,
| rheumatic limb and damp weather in
| struggle, neuralgias. and pneumoniaS, and
consumptions, and epilepsies in fiocks swoop
| upon neighborhoods and cities. Where you
| find one person with sound throat, and
keen eyesight, and alert ear, and easy respi-
ration, and regular pulsation, and supple
limb, and prime digestion, and steady
nerves, you find hundred who have to be
very careful because this, or that, or the
| other physical function is disordered.
The human intellect out of tune: The
| judgment wrongly swerved, or the memory
leaky, or the will weak, or the temper in
| fiammable, and the well balanced mind ex-
ceptional. Domestic life out of tune: Only
here and there a conjugal outbreak of in
compatibility of temper through the divorce
courts, or a filial outbreak about fathers
will through the Surrogates Court, or case
of wife-beating or misunderstanding
through the criminal courts, but thousands
of families with June outside and January
| within.
Society out of tune: Labor and capital,
their hands on each others throat. Spirit
of caste keeping those down in the social
scale in struggle to get up, and putting
those who are up in anxiety lest they have
| to come down. No wonder the old piano
forte of society is all out of tune, when hy-
| pocrisy, and lying, and subterfuge, and
double dealing, and sycophancy, and charla
tanism, and revenge have for six thousand
years been banging away at the keys and
stamping the pedals.
On all sides there is perpetual shlpwreck
of harmonies. Nations in discord: With
| out realizing it so strong is the feeling Of
nation for nation that the symbols chosen
are fierce and destructive. In this country,
where our skies are full of robins, and doves,
and morning larks, we have our national
symbol, the fierce and filthy eagle, as i'm
moral bird as can be found in all the
prnithological catalogues. In Great Britain,
| where they have lambs and fallow deer,
| their symbol is the merciless lion In Rus
| sia, where from between her frozen north
and blooming south ell kindly beasts dwell,
they choose the growing bear; and in the
worlds heraldry favorite figure is the
dragon, which is a winged serpent, ferocious
and deathful. And so fond is the world of
contention that we climb out through the
heavens and baptize one OF the planets with
the spirit of battle, and call it
Mars, after the God of war, and
we give to the eighth sign of the
zodiac the name of the scorpion, creature
which is chiefly celebrated for its deadly
sting. But, after all, these symbols are ex-
| pressive of the way nation feels toward ma
| ton. Discord wide as the continent and
bridging the seas. / suppose you have no
ticed how warmly in love dry goods stores
are with other dry good stores, and how
highly grocerymen think Of the sugars of
the grocerymen on the same block. And
in what eulogistic way allopathic and ho-
mppathic doctors speak of each other, and
how ministers win sometimes put ministers
on that beautiful cooking instrument which
the English call a spit, an iron roller with